Undefeated Bluecoats roll into St. Louis after Alexandria win

ALEXANDRIA, Ky. — The Bluecoats (1st, 85.600) broke 85 points for the first time Saturday night, defeating four fellow World Class corps at DCI Northern Kentucky for their 14th straight first-place finish.

Once again, the Canton corps fended off Carolina Crown (2nd, 84.450), but by a slimmer margin than it has seen in recent days. Crown took top marks in percussion and brass, while the Bluecoats won all other captions.

“That was a lot of fun; it’s easy at this time of year for the shows to get monotonous and it’s hard to kind of separate the shows,” Bluecoats drum major Samuel Crawford. “Tonight was just clean, and we delivered exactly what we needed to do.”

With Saturday’s win, the Canton Corps enters Sunday’s DCI Midwestern Championship presented by DeMoulin Bros. & Co. in St. Louis as the only undefeated World Class corps remaining on the 2018 DCI Tour. However, the Bluecoats have yet to face top competition like the defending World Champion Blue Devils, who will also be in attendance on Sunday.

“We want to play our game, and play our notes and rhythms,” Crawford said. “We talked a little bit today after our rehearsals about how the path that we are on is straight, and all we have to do to get the result that we want is to stay on that path.”

Music City

Another corps looking to carry its early success into the season’s first regional event, Spirit of Atlanta (3rd, 76.700) kept a significant advantage over Music City (4th, 66.900). With two strong weeks under its belt, the Atlanta corps has high hopes going into St. Louis.

“Placement is always in the back of everyone’s mind,” Spirit drum major Aidan Lerner said. “Seeing all the scores that we’ve been going through, it’s just a really promising year for Spirit of Atlanta.”

Wrapping up the standings from Saturday night’s event, Jersey Surf (5th, 64.300) saw an improvement of more than two points from its last competitive performance. Thursday in Knoxville.

Jersey Surf

“A lot of changes were put in recently and they came into play perfectly,” Surf drum major Dante Salina said. “In my opinion, we are much further along than we have been in previous years. Definitely, at the halfway point, I’m feeling very happy about our future.”

All five corps will be St. Louis-bound, where they’ll meet up with 12 other World Class corps and three Open Class corps for the 2018 season’s biggest event to date.